Wednesday, March 28, 2012

As I frequently note, real history is more interesting than
fiction so you’re better off with reality than a made up version. As this post will
show, you can’t make this stuff up.

In the last post we described the sack of Rome which
occurred in 410 A.D. Now we jump forward 40 years to find Rome and the Visigoths
allied against Attila and the Hunnic Empire. How did this happen? How did the destroyer
of Rome, the tribe that fought the Roman army for 200 years, now become an ally?

Before getting to the action – the Battle of Chalons in 451
A.D. – we need to set up the preliminaries, which involve some intricate
politics.

Circa 408 A.D, the Pyrenees were manned by a militia placed
there to block barbarian incursions into Spain. But the militia was withdrawn
to support the usurper Constantine who sought to oppose Honorius for the crown.
With the militia gone, the Suevi, Vandals, and Alani poured down from Gaul into
Spain, taking it over. They devastated the country before deciding to settle it and then put an administrative apparatus in place.

The king of the Goths at that time was Adolphus, who received
the crown following the death of Alaric. Formerly a rival of the Visigoths,
Adolphus was now embraced by them out of necessity – the need for a strong
leader. And Adolphus had come to realize the merits of friendly co-existence.
As Gibbon tells us:

“In the full
confidence of valor and victory, I once aspired (said Adolphus) to change the
face of the universe; to obliterate the name of Rome; to erect on its ruins the
dominion of the Goths; and to acquire, like Augustus, the immortal fame of the
founder of a new empire. By repeated experiments, I was gradually
convinced, that laws are essentially necessary to maintain and regulate a
well-constituted state; and that the fierce, untractable humor of the Goths was
incapable of bearing the salutary yoke of laws and civil government. From
that moment I proposed to myself a different object of glory and ambition; and
it is now my sincere wish that the gratitude of future ages should acknowledge
the merit of a stranger, who employed the sword of the Goths, not to subvert,
but to restore and maintain, the prosperity of the Roman empire.

Adolphus suspended his operations of war and negotiated a
treaty with Rome. Once the treaty was complete, he marched his army to the
southern provinces of Gaul and settled between the Mediterranean and the
Ocean. Adolphus then cemented his relationship with Rome by marrying the daughter of
emperor Theodosius, who was also sister to Honorius.

Peace being foreign to the mind of the king, he became
convinced at the urging of Honorius to attack the barbarians in Spain. After
seizing Barcelona, he was assassinated. Some intrigues followed and then the
crown of the Visigoths passed to Wallia. The latter worked his way through
Spain and upon reaching Gibraltar, contemplated crossing to Africa, but he
changed his mind and decided to become an ally of Rome instead. Brought to the
city and given a triumph, Wallia now carried the mantle as Rome’s great ally in
the west.

Put to work by the Romans, he attacked Spain.

“He exterminated the
Silingi, who had irretrievably ruined the elegant plenty of the province of
Boetica. He slew, in battle, the king of the Alani; and the remains of
those Scythian wanderers, whoescaped
from the field, instead of choosing a new leader, humbly sought a refuge under
the standard of the Vandals, with whom they were ever afterwards
confounded. The Vandals themselves, and the Suevi, yielded to the efforts
of the invincible Goths. The promiscuous multitude of Barbarians, whose
retreat had been intercepted, were driven into the mountains of Gallicia; where
they still continued, in a narrow compass and on a barren soil, to exercise
their domestic and implacable hostilities.”

The year was 418 A.D.

With the Spanish war complete, the Visigoths established
themselves in Aquitaine under the ecclesiastical control of Bordeaux. Their
neighbors were the Burgundians who controlled upper Germany and the Franks who
controlled lower Germany. After his death, Wallia was succeeded by Theodoric, a
forward thinking man who had his six sons educated in Roman jurisprudence at the
best schools in Gaul.

The other component of our Roman-Gothic alliance is the
singular personality Flavius Aetius. Born in Moesia to a Scythian father and an
Italian mother, Aetius served much of his childhood as a hostage: first with
Alaric (405-408 A.D) and then with Rugila, king of the Huns. Those experiences
aided Aetius in two ways: he developed a comfort with military life and he
became friends with his adversaries.

When Honorius died in 423 A.D, Aetius attached himself to
the usurper Johannes, who sent him to the Huns to ask for military assistance. He
returned to Italy in 425 A.D. with an army only to find Johannes dead
and the western empire in control of Valentinian III and his mother Galla
Placidia. After some fighting, Aetius was able to forge a compromise with Galla
which required that he send the Huns home in exchange for an appointment as
general under the new emperor.

The list of Aetius military successes is a long one. Between
427 and 430 A.D. he defeated the Visigoths and Franks in Gaul. Between 433 and
450 A.D. he fought the Burgundians, the Suebi, and the Visigoths, treating with
the latter in 439 A.D. He fought the Burgundians again in 443 A.D. and the
Franks again in 448 A.D. Wherever he went, Aetius carried a Hunnic cavalry with
him.

In 451 A.D, Attila was recruited to come to the aid of the
Vandals and Franks who were under constant pressure from the Visigoths and
Romans. His readiness to go to war is described by Gibbon in the following passage,

“The kings and nations
of Germany and Scythia, from the Volga perhaps to the Danube, obeyed the
warlike summons of Attila. From the royal village, in the plains of
Hungary his standard moved towards the West; and after a march of seven or
eight hundred miles, he reached the conflux of the Rhine and the Neckar, where
he was joined by the Franks, who adhered to his ally, the elder of the sons of
Clodion. A troop of light Barbarians, who roamed in quest of plunder,
might choose the winter for the convenience of passing the river on the ice;
but the innumerable cavalry of the Huns required such plenty of forage and
provisions, as could be procured only in a milder season.

“But as the greatest
part of the Gallic cities were alike destitute of saints and soldiers, they
were besieged and stormed by the Huns; who practiced, in the example of Metz,
their customary maxims of war. They involved, in a promiscuous massacre,
the priests who served at the altar, and the infants, who, in the hour of
danger, had been providently baptized by the bishop.”

…From the Rhine and
the Moselle, Attila advanced into the heart of Gaul; crossed the Seine at
Auxerre; and, after a long and laborious march, fixed his camp under the walls
of Orleans.

Attila now began a siege of the city. The people put up a stubborn
defense but were at the point of breaking when a messenger sent to the ramparts
by the bishop returned with a report where he

“mentioned a small
cloud, which he had faintly descried at the extremity of the horizon. The remote object, on
whichevery eye was fixed, became
each moment larger, and more distinct; the Roman and Gothic banners were
gradually perceived; and a favorable wind blowing aside the dust, discovered,
in deep array, the impatient squadrons of Aetius and Theodoric, who pressed
forwards to the relief of Orleans.”

To avoid being trapped in the heart of Gaul, Attila broke
the siege and retreated beyond the Seine near the plains of Chalon. There the plains
extend for a hundred miles in each direction -- an ideal spot for battle.

Above is a map showing the location of Chalons. I thought it would be interesting to point out the locations of the World War I battle line and Hitler's attack point at the start of World War II as references.

As Attila retreated, the rear of his formation was harassed by
the vanguard of the allies causing him some 15,000 casualties.

He asked for auspices to be taken and he was told, “your
adversary will be killed, but you will lose the battle.” To avoid the negative
connotation of the prophesy, Attila exhorted
his troops, telling them he would lead them into battle.

The battle dispositions were as follows.

“At the head of his
brave and faithful Huns, he occupied in person the centre of the line.
The nations subject to his empire, the Rugians, the Heruli, the Thuringians,
the Franks, the Burgundians, were extended on either hand, over the ample space
of the Catalaunian fields; the right wing was commanded by Ardaric, king of the
Gepidae; and the three valiant brothers, who reigned over the Ostrogoths, were
posted on the left to oppose the kindred tribes of the Visigoths. The
disposition of the allies was regulated by a different principle.
Sangiban, the faithless king of the Alani, was placed in the centre, where his
motions might be strictly watched, and that the treachery might be instantly
punished. Aetius assumed the command of the left, and Theodoric of the rightwing; while Torismond still continued to
occupy the heights which appear to have stretched on the flank, and perhaps the
rear, of the Scythian army.”

After the initial discharge of missile weapons, cavalry from
both sides engaged each other in close combat. The middle of the Hunnic line
was able to pierce the weak center of
their opponents and quickly wheeled left to attack the Visigoth army. Theodoric, leading his troops, was struck by a javelin, knocked off his horse, and
trampled to death. Soon the auspices would be fulfilled as the Visigoths
restored their order of battle, routed the barbarian army, and forced Attila to retreat. The Hunnic army spent the night preparing to be attacked
but the allies had suffered substantial casualties themselves and were in
no shape to press them. Aetius' survey of the carnage proved to him that he had won the battle.

The following year Attila pressed a claim for Honoria, sister
of Valentinian III, who he had previously married. Rebuffed, he vowed to
destroy Italy. Beginning with Aquileia, Attila pressed a three month siege to conclusion
and then leveled the city. One by one the other cities and towns fell like dominoes before him: Vicenza, Verona, and Bergamo were destroyed while Milan and
Pavia paid tribute to avoid the fate of the others.

Desperate to stop the carnage, the bishop of Rome and others
were sent to negotiate with Attila and a treaty was struck for the withdrawal
of his army from the peninsula. Before it could be signed, however, Attila died
suddenly of a burst artery. The year was 453 A.D.

Over the next few years, the Goths became more powerful:
Visigoths in Gaul and the Ostrogoths in the Balkans – the latter now separated
from the remnant Hunnic Empire. The Hunnic nation broke apart as a result of
the poor leadership and infighting between the sons of Attila. Ellac, the
eldest son, lost his life in the battle of Netad. Dengisich, another brother,
was killed by his slaves. The youngest brother, Irnac, who was smarter than his
siblings, retired to lesser Scythia, only to be overrun by new hordes from the
east.

Most unfortunate of the threads of this story was the
assassination of Aetius, who was intrigued against by Valentinian’s favorite
eunuch Heraclius. Jealous of his reputation and power, the emperor decided Aetius
was a threat to the crown, and stabbed him during a palace visit on
September 21st 454 A.D. Less than a year later the emperor would be
assassinated by two of Aetius’ lieutenants.

1 comment:

If only the Romans had been craftty enough to incorporate both the Goths and the Huns into defenders of the empire history would have been radically changed perhaps for the better. A oppitunity lost forever.